For many radio listeners, Friday evenings and Sunday mornings have never been the same since 2004, when Alistair Cooke broadcast his final Letter from America. To describe this Radio 4 programme as a 15-minute talk about current events in the USA is accurate, but hardly does justice to Cooke’s distinctive blend of shrewd observation and personal reminiscence, all delivered in his mellifluous voice every week from 1946 to 2004. Yet Letter from America was only one of the many achievements of this remarkable man.
Alfred Cooke was born into a working-class family in Greater Manchester in 1908. After winning a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, the young Cooke changed his name to the more intellectual-sounding Alistair and became editor of Granta, a university literary magazine. After graduating from Cambridge, he was awarded another scholarship, which enabled him to do further study at two of the most prestigious American universities, Harvard and Yale. So it was that in September 1932, he arrived in America.
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